Biological Systems for courtship, Mating Reproduction, and Parenting

Love, Sexual Desire, Courtship, and Mating

According to Fisher, attraction (passionate love) is characterized by a yearning to win a preferred mating partner. She observes that the attraction brain system is primarily associated with increased dopamine in the reward centers. There is also increased activity of central norepinephrine and decreased activity of central serotonin. Other brain systems also contribute to produce the range of cognitions, emotions, motivations, and behaviors central to romantic love.

Sexual desire (lust), on the other hand, is typified by a general craving for sexual gratification and may be directed toward many potential partners. In men and women, the androgens, particularly testosterone, are central to sparking sexual desire.

Many neuroscientists contend that passionate love and sexual desire are in fact tightly linked. Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki, for example, (using functional magnetic imaging [fMRI] techniques) attempted to identify the brain regions associated with passionate love and sexual desire. They put up posters around London, advertising for men and women who were “truly, deeply, and madly in love.” Seventy young men and women from 11 countries and several ethnic groups responded. Those who scored highest on the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) were selected for study. These people were placed in an fMRI scanner. This high-tech scanner constructs an image of the brain in which changes in blood flow (induced by brain activity) are represented as color-coded pixels. Bartels and Zeki gave each person a photograph of their beloved to gaze at, alternating the beloved's picture with pictures of other casual friends. They then digitally compared the scans taken while the participants viewed their beloved's picture to those taken while they viewed a friend's picture, creating images that represented the brain regions that became more (or less) active when people viewed their beloved's picture. These images, the researchers argued, revealed the brain regions involved when a person experiences passionate love and/or sexual desire.

Bartels and Zekidiscovered that passion sparked increased activity in the brain areas associated with euphoria and reward and decreased activity in the areas associated with sadness, anxiety, and fear. Activity seemed to be restricted to foci in the medial insula and the anterior cingulated cortex and, subcortically, in the caudate nucleus, and the putamen, all bilaterally. Most of the regions that were activated during the experience of romantic love are those that are active when people are under the influence of euphoria-inducing drugs such as opiates or cocaine. Apparently, both passionate love and those drugs activate a “blissed-out” circuit in the brain. The anterior cingulated cortex has also been shown to be active when people view sexually arousing material. This makes sense since passionate love and sexual desire are generally assumed to be tightly linked constructs.

...